TheBrownBottle

Dan Burn is allergic to heading the ball in the opposition box

Gordon is off

The funny thing is that for the last seven or eight games our attacking play has clicked, and it’s almost as if the back five not looking anything like as solid has went unnoticed. Same again today so far, Pope and the centre halves in particular are making some interesting decisions. I still think we’ll be ok here. A nice early goal SH will settle the nerves back down - and force Soton to attack again.

Just like vs Villa, there is a significant drop off in intensity without Longstaff in the middle. Soton will sit on this now - they’ve been decent first half. Bruno likes doing that ‘running the ball with a man on the shoulder’ thing, but it’s suicidal when you’re running towards your own goal. Need to be a bit quicker with the ball in the final third. I still think there’ll be a rocket up the bum from Howe here - he won’t wait long to make changes, either.

Bruno dozing off in midfield caused that I’m afraid. Happening a fair bit of late.

We play a high intensity game and those slight over- or under-hit passes are exacerbated by it. Also hard to keep footing. I think we’ve been ok so far tbf - Soton playing canny well too with nowt to lose

Really fancy two things which are a bit of a rarity atm - a clean sheet and a Bruno goal

Man Utd always attracted huge crowds, though there are plenty who pin their nationwide support to sympathy from the Munich Air Disaster in ‘58 of course - and I do think Liverpool benefitted from being successful at just the right time; the dawn of the TV and European football being the biggest thing going age. Had European football and TV become as integral a decade earlier than it did, it might have been Wolves and us (or similar) who entered the picture as the biggest bollocks on the playground. And we had the world’s fourth highest turnover in 97/98 - though this was the very end of the time when ticket prices were similar across the country and the numbers through the gates and local merchandising truly made a difference. Today it’s how many punters in Asia or the US or elsewhere have decided that you’re their favouritest side in the world - this week, anyway

Yeah, there's a logic to that. And they can definitely sponsor more than one team.

No, there are no doubt some people in Middlesbrough and sunderland who would quite like to see it happen

Yep, Wolfsburg are 100% VW owned. Clubs in Germany are often linked historically to the big local factory where most were employed - a lot of German towns and cities sprung up around a single employer. The only one I can think of in England with a similar background is Arsenal - though of course they no longer play in Woolwich and aren't funded by the local armaments plant.

Comparisons of NUFC's latest kit sponsorship deal to Spurs'. Also there seems to be a wider debate around who we replace in a 'Big Six' - which presupposes that there is a Big Six, and that you can't have more than six in an elite group. I think you can have more; and you can have fewer (which English football has in the past). The media seem obsessed with who we replace, but what seems more likely is that over the next two or three years they start talking about a 'Big Seven'; the clubs competing regular for European slots and domestic cups. Once the current phase of our rebuild is over, I can see years c.5-10 post-takeover us moving away from that bracket - and competing consistently for big trophies with other huge clubs.

Don't get me wrong, they're definitely the 'lesser' of the 'Big (Sky) Six' (more than happy to call them the 'Sky Six' btw - Sky love these 'Big' monikers as a sales-pitch) - the others actually win things! What I meant re Leverkusen is that they are not historically a big club, nor a successful one, nor do they get big attendances. They're a well-run (and well-back financially - the supposed purity offered up by German football ownership models also has within it two prominent clubs - Bayer Leverkusen and RB Leipzig - who literally have their huge multinational corporate backers in the name. Though they're still not as successful as PSV - another of the corporate clubs) club which has punched above its weight. I agree that Spurs are basically at the height of what they can be, at least without external resourcing being poured in. Which would likely be the case for us, too - consistent top five or six finishes would be a well-run NUFC's likely best case scenario, allowing for the club to run under its own steam. However, the backing the club now has can act like a steroid injection and allow the club to punch its way above that - like Man City or Chelsea. And once you're winning things for a few years, the reputation is made and the club is truly transformed - Man City and Chelsea are not 'naturally' bigger clubs than Newcastle, Villa, Everton, Leeds ... or Spurs. Note that my opinion is that NUFC could always have been more than that, but the last 20 years or so have meant that clubs like ours find a different ceiling in the modern game to the one which existed for a century before that. One thing though, I'm afraid if you're seriously going to suggest that Man Utd and Liverpool are also somehow propped up via the forces of darkness for their 'support' then we're never going to agree on that one - Man Utd and Liverpool are huge clubs, full stop. That is truly getting into second gunman on the grassy knoll, jetfuel doesn't melt steel territory ...

The implication is that if we haven't managed to get the sponsorship in that Spurs have, then we must be run by complete muppets, as according to you the Spurs' marketability is simply a gigantic fraud and therefore we should easily be attracting the same sort of sponsorship deals. The 'Spurs have bought followers on twitter' thing is tin foil hat territory - it's just plain odd. Here's Spurs's league record over the past 10 years: 4th; 7th; 6th; 4th; 3rd; 2nd; 3rd; 5th; 6th; 5th; 6th. That 7th place finish is the only time since 2009 they've finished outside the top six. They also reached a Champions League Final during that time - though they've been in the CL in 5 of the last 8 seasons. Newcastle's record during that period: 11th; 12th; 13th; 13th; 10th; (1st in Second Division); 18th; 15th; 10th; 16th. Having really rich owners doesn't trump performance on the pitch - Spurs have consistently finished in the top six positions for over a decade. The Leverkusen comparison is a ludicrous one; Spurs were a member of the 'Big Five' when the PL breakaway happened in 1992. They've been a big club since the '50s at a minimum - when I was a kid in the late 80s-90s Spurs were England's most successful cup side of all time. Leverkusen are not the German equivalent of Spurs. Spurs are a very similar size club to use - as is a lot of their history. So close that we sit 5th in the all-time attendance averages for the football league in England - Spurs sit in 4th. My claim to their 'greatness' isn't social media - you're being utterly disingenuous. For what it's worth, the 'Big Six' shite is a bit of a misnomer anyway - there is no fixed number to it. It's been a Big Four, Big Five and Big Six at various points in my lifetime - with Man Utd, Arsenal and Liverpool the only permanent fixtures - and there is no reason that it couldn't be a 'Big Seven' with us in there (like Serie A's sette sorelle - 'Seven Sisters'). We're still playing catch-up with these clubs after a decade and a half of neglect by Ashley. This season has been incredible for us - but it should be noted that it would represent a pretty normal one for Spurs in the past decade, and a failure for the clubs who we truly aspire to compete with. It is going to take years to catch up fully with some of these clubs - next season we could just as easily drop several places (which no-one should worry about or gan radge over). I can't fucking stand Spurs, just for the record. But the idea that their position in English football is being propped up by twitter bots and Joe Lewis's contact book is fucking crackers.

Nothing wrong with that, but the biggest shitter of all re the Ashley deals is that they were commercially shite

Yeah, I always had a soft spot for them. Big club with a grand history who’ve been ludicrously underperforming (club-wise not team-wise) for over two decades. They overreacted to the criticisms of ground safety, but that’s hardly vendetta-worthy.

It’s not about brands, it’s about money. The Castore deal will be worth pennies - with kit deals you make the money upfront; the clubs make very little from actual shirt sales.

Yep, this what I was trying to say - you’ve expressed it much better

Sorry, you’re right. PIF, Staveley and Reuben must be absolutely fucking useless at business, then: there must be loads of sponsors out there queuing to give us more than what Spurs get, yet somehow they’re missing those deals. After all, if the market offers us those deals - with no strings attached - then it passes the fair market value test. And of course online followers isn’t proof of everything; it’s just one element. Spurs must have bought the 6m more Twitter followers and 20m more Facebook followers. Makes sense to me. Same way that we must have bought the 2.5m followers more we have than Blackpool. Given that we’re now more attractive to the international markets than Spurs on the basis of being on the verge of CL qualification - a competition they were in the final of just a few years back - does that mean Villa are bigger than Liverpool and Brentford bigger than Chelsea on the basis of league placing this season? I’m being deliberately daft with those later examples, but we’ll surpass these clubs soon enough - but we’re deluding ourselves if we think we’re there just yet. It’ll come - no doubt about it

I’ve worked with plenty of lads from all over the world doing what I do - Man Utd, Chelsea and Liverpool are the only clubs those from Asia and Africa I’ve worked with (and they’ll be above 150 people) have supported; I’ve never met a Man City fan. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t have visibility, nor that they don’t have followers around the world. I don’t doubt that soon enough the numbers will follow - though that will require trophies and years at the top end, not a single good season. We’ll be there soon enough

But you’re both talking about anecdotal experience. You’re NUFC fans so you’ll notice every time you see an NUFC top. Spurs’ sponsorship deals are not arrived at because of the relationships their owners hold to those parties - they don’t need to worry about ‘fair market value’ at present. If it was true that we have similar visibility then the market would be offering £40m deals left right and centre without a leg up from PIF. Have a look at the social media following Spurs has. Then look at ours. Last I checked we’re still behind Leicester, West Ham and Everton. This isn’t about how big we are relative to each other in England - I don’t see Spurs as bigger than us, Villa or Everton. But the idea that we have - at the moment - greater visibility just isn’t borne out by any tangible evidence.

‘Seyzun’ = season, if those not able to comprehend Mackem are watching it

Yep, that’s the thing. Nowt wrong with liking a player at that level who’s a trier - we’ve had a few over the years. The difference is that we weren’t daft enough to compare said trier to some of the best midfielders in the PL (Teddy hasn’t done this on here - but there are Mackems who’ve said what he’d do vs Bruno, Joe, Willock etc. As if he’s anywhere near that level).

You couldn’t argue at present that the club has the same stature internationally as Spurs - so the sponsorship deal was always going to be in the £20m+ bracket. This was the number touted last summer too, until Fun88 negotiated the extra year before agreeing a break clause.